Despite the rise of same-day booking services, apparently just 1% of leisure and business travellers plan their trip within the final 24-hour window.

Digital marketing agency Sociomantic asked 1,000 consumers about their travel preferences to understand at what point they make a booking for a trip.

The results illustrate that a trend towards hotel bookings on same-day booking services might reveal more about the spontaneous behaviour of securing somewhere to sleep, but the actual basis of a trip happens long before that particular period.

Trip planning window: Business vs leisure travellers

Among business travellers, 15% of them plan trips between one and seven days before the departure date, with 57% of them planing their trip seven to 21 days before they leave.

Interestingly, just 1% of respondents plan trip in less than 24 hours.

When it comes to leisure travellers, a vast majority (70%) of the respondents plan their trip 21 days or more prior to a trip. Again, only 1% of the leisure travellers plan journeys within 24 hours ahead of depature.

Business travellers – What’s their priority?

When it comes to the freedom to plan their trips, 50% of business travellers said they have full control over it. About 29% said they have “some control”, while only 2% said they do not have any control on their trip planning process.

Convenience is rated as the top priority for a majority (52%) of business travellers. However, a similar study by Google among business travellers reveals ‘”cost” as the top priority.

When it comes to spending during business trips, food and drinks takes the top two spots respectively, with arrangements for data plans comes in third, perhaps illustrating that many still have corporate accounts for their devices and roaming usage is far less an important concern.

Leisure travellers – What’s their priority?

Almost three out of five (58%) of leisure travelers rank cost as their top priority during the trip planning stage. Convenience and comfort of a trip are both rated as important by 21% of respondents.

When compared to business travellers, food and data plans is of less importance among leisure travellers.

Trip planning sources

Perhaps surprisingly given the rise of metasearch engines and in-house or retained travel managers, both business and leisure travelers cited airline websites as a “go-to resource” for travel planning. When it comes to hotels, the number stands at 96% and 97% for business and leisure travellers respectively.

A Google study highlights search engines (60%), and hotel websites (58%) as the top sites for trip planning among leisure travellers. When it comes to business travellers, the same study also highlights hotel websites (68%) and airline websites (57%) as the top sites for trip planning among business travellers.

Sociomantic says its survey also saw deal websites cited as a top resource in the planning phase, with airlines (71%) and hotels (63%) for business travellers, and 78% of leisure travellers citing airlines and 74% for hotels.

Six out of ten (59%) of respondents said that if they were shown a personalized digital ad focused on discounts, upgrades or other offers, they would be more likely to purchase.

NB: Travel clock image via Shutterstock.